Family Cruise Trip 2025

Hi there. It's me, Cassi. If you're a friend or family member, you've seen me around, just not on here as of late. It's not that I gave up writing my stories, it's just that I went back to school, and well - that has required a lot of writing that took me away from the leisurely kind of writing that I so enjoy. But for a little while (until I have to do my Capstone project, with a few exceptions), I'm done with school writing. It feels so good to be back over here, writing so freely. Social media has been an ok alternative, but the attention span of most people (myself included) when mindlessly scrolling on those apps is about .05 seconds. Anything longer than that, whether it be in video or writing format, seems to get passed by. Not that this won't also get passed by, and there's nothing wrong with that - but at least I feel more "allowed" to write more here if I so desire, without annoying the masses. 

I still don't have anything profound or exquisite to write - just my stories. But our stories are important. They're what shapes us and what we'll leave behind when we're gone. Even so, know that my feelings won't be hurt if you opt out of hearing my story. But if anyone ever does care to read about the happenings of the life of little ol' Cassi Chaney, I'll be right here. 

All of that being said, what will my first story back on the blog be? Our most recent family vacation this past summer. I know I posted about it on the socials, but I wanted to elaborate more, so on the blog it goes. And because it's been so long since I last wrote here, my posted stories are definitely going to be out of order. Everything for all of the years that I have written on this blog has been written in sequential order, so this will be new having everything posted be more random. But it might also be more fun. All part of the adventure.  

All right, so here we go...

This particular vacation happened because Logan had mentioned wanting to go on a cruise. When the boys were little, we went on a Disney Cruise, but they were too young to really remember it. So it was basically a brand new experience for them, which was really fun. The Galveston cruise port does a really good job with the whole embarking/disembarking process. This first picture was our first really good glimpse of the ship as we were making our way to embark.

My parents came with us but opted to watch us set sail from somewhere different from us (I'm not sure but I'm pretty positive they were at the pool with the bar). I had heard that the helipad provided the best views for sail away and I'm glad that's where we ended up. Again, when the boys were younger, I had taken them to South Padre Island and we did a private dolphin tour so they could dolphins in the wild. They do remember that excursion but it was still several years ago. So when Galveston Bay was full of dolphins, it was quite the treat to watch. Korben has some videos of it on his phone, but I didn't acquire any for some reason. We also got to see plenty of seagulls up close, which was also cool. 

We were the first group on the ship, so we got to do lots of exploring while at port.

We opted to eat lunch at the buffet on sail away day and this was our first view of the water from inside the ship. The entire vacation was wonderful, but I really soaked in these first moments of the boys experiencing it all.

This was a view of the Promenade. This is where a lot of the action and food was. This area had several bars, restaurants, shopping, the casino, and the theater. Later on in the trip I did some solo exploring and took more pictures of the ship so those will pop up at some point. 

We had an ocean view balcony room and it was perfect. 

All of the walls, doors, and even ceilings of the rooms are magnetic. So we brought some fun magnets to decorate with. It made our cabin easy to find! We had a magnetic whiteboard on the outside of our room that people would write and leave messages on every day. It was really fun to see who all had been by our room and stopped to write something. 

You can't tell what this is from the picture, but I brought magnetic Scrabble tiles with me for our room door but we also used them to spell our names over each of our beds. It was a small but fun detail. 

I spent quite a bit of time on our balcony watching the sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes I just listened to the ocean while breathing in the salt air. There are few things in this world that do as much for my soul and body as breathing in the ocean air. 

It was fun one early morning to see the navigation crew in the bridge enjoying the sunrise as well.

The ship that we were on had a cool feature called the "peek-ab-boo deck" that allowed you to look into the bridge and see all of the navigation happenings. 

There were several mornings that I was up before everyone else. I don't usually get up early at home because I'm so sleep deprived and try to sleep in when I can. But I actually really love early mornings. It's just so calm and peaceful. And on this vacation, I embraced that part of me that loves early mornings and explored the ship a bit. It was nice to walk around without anyone else. For a few brief moments, I had the ship basically all to myself. I took loads of pictures. 

These electronic panels were on every floor. They told you if it was a sea day or port day, weather, ship location, and other useful info related to the ship and cruise.

There was a ton of art all over the ship with different themes. I'm not an art guru by any means at all, but I really enjoyed looking at it all.

One of main reasons I chose this specific ship is because I wanted my parents to come. My mom has some mobility issues and was worried she wouldn't be able to get around a big cruise ship. But Mariner of the Seas is smaller and I saw on a YouTube video that it has these little lifts throughout the ship. In real life, I only ever found this one lift. And it wasn't in service. It ended up not being an issue and my mom got around just fine, but still slightly disappointing about these seemingly useful tools.

The waterslides and flow rider. We stood in line for the flow rider just one time, only to be told that we couldn't do it because we never filled out waivers that I didn't know needed to be filled out. Oh well. The waterslides were still fun. 

The Pringles climbing structure

The arcade

The teens lounge, Fuel

Did we bring ducks to hide all over the ship? Yes, yes we did. And the boys had fun when they found them from other cruisers too. Korben still loves sharks, so its great that the first duck he found at the peekaboo bridge was a shark duck!

Mini golf is always fun, but it was definitely more fun on ship with the ocean in the background

No reading happened in the library, but there were several chess games

The boys with our ship, Mariner of the Seas, in the background. Mariner is one of Royal Caribbean's smaller ships, but it was perfect for us. It was easy to navigate and there was PLENTY for everyone to do. 

This port, Costa Maya, was an absolute bust. I did some research on activities and excursions to do here and the majority of what I saw recommended renting a golf cart from a company call The Red Shirt Guys and driving yourself around to explore with a stop at Krazy Lobster Beach which supposedly great beach access and cheap food and drinks. I really was so pumped for this. But by the time we disembarked and made it to where the Red Shirt Guys were, they didn't have any more golf carts. We thought about pivoting, but my poor mom was exhausted from the long trek from the ship just to get to the port entry and we all really wanted to make it back to our early dinner seating for the tropical theme night back on the ship. So we ended up just hanging out at the pools at the port and doing some souvenir shopping.  

Watching another ship come in and dock at the port from our room balcony was surprisingly entertaining

We opted for a scheduled excursion in Cozumel that went much better than Costa Maya. We took a boat out a little bit and then boarded a submarine. We submerged under just over 100 feet. I don't know it that's considered deep or not, but we all really enjoyed it. 

Is it really a family vacation if you don't have family game nights? Not in our family! This exact table kind of became our spot throughout the cruise for our game night shenanigans. 

I signed us all up for a family Cornhole competition and after not placing at all, Logan wanted to sign up for almost every competition that they could including rock wall climbing, ping-poing, and even a Super Smash Bros competition. Both boys signed up for and participated in all of the competitions, but Logan was determined to win 1st place in at least one of the competitions. He was successful and walked away with medals for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in various events plus a hat for a 4th place finish in air hockey.

We love escape rooms, so when I found out the ship had one, of course I booked it. I'm never much help in those things, but I'm pretty sure the boys have a perfect escape record. This was one was tough, but the escape was made!                                          

This was just a cool part of the floor in the casino entrance. My parents spent more time in there than I did, but I did enjoy a slot pulls during the at sea days.

My parents ended up with the professional photos with all of us, so I don't have any of those to post, but here is a picture I took of my parents on formal night. We'll end the post with this one just because they are so cute. I wasn't sure if they would take this trip with us when I first booked it, and I'm so glad they decided to come because it wouldn't have been the same without them. This truly was a great family vacation.